Recovered sea turtles back in the water after almost a year

Friday

Aug 24, 2007 at 12:01 AMAug 24, 2007 at 6:04 AM

In what has become an annual event, the National Marine Life Center, New England Aquarium and Riverhead Foundation sent their healthy and recovered sea turtles into Nantucket Sound with the hope they’ll swim safely south to their breeding grounds.

By Rich Eldred

It was cool and blustery at Dowses Beach, not a nice day for swimming.

No one went into the water at all, save the brave 11, and they took to it like they’d been born to it. Of course when you have flippers instead of feet, you were.

Much to the approval of a huge crowd, the endangered seas turtles eagerly flopped across the sands Monday and into the surf after months of recovery from being stuck in the icy waters of Cape Cod Bay last fall.

“They get the scent of the ocean and they want to go home,” said Bill Allan of Mass Audubon.

In what has become an annual event, the National Marine Life Center, New England Aquarium and Riverhead Foundation sent their healthy and recovered sea turtles into Nantucket Sound with the hope they’ll swim safely south to their breeding grounds.

“The first time I saw this I was amazed,” marveled turtle patrol chief Dennis Murley of Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. “When we get them, they’re emaciated; they look like a plucked chicken; all their body fat is gone. Now they’re all plump. They’re a different color. They look like a different species. They look like they’re bursting out of their shell they’re so healthy.”

Wellfleet Bay is the first stop when the stranded and cold-stunned turtles are rescued in November and December. From there they go to the New England Aquarium.

“It’s months of work,” said Aquarium senior biologist Kate Sardi. “A lot of long days and hard work put in by a lot of people. But to see them recover from their injuries and the state they were in, barely alive, is really remarkable. These are endangered species and we hope this has an impact on the species at large.”

Hundreds of beachgoers ringed the cordoned-off beach awaiting the turtles. They arrived in style a fashionable 35 minutes late at five after five. The satellite tagging at the life center took a little longer than expected.

One Kemp’s ridley turtle, by the name of Panaphil, was picked up by Murley himself.

“I believe at around 2 in the morning,” he recalled. “That aroused the interest of the Truro Police Department. Someone reported a suspicious van driving around and the turtle was my alibi.”

It’s fortunate he didn’t have to testify in court but Murley returned the favor, showing off his chum to the crowd.

“This past season was warm for so long,” Murley said. “The survival rates was somewhere in the low 30s [percent] and we want to get it up to the 40s and 50s. Most of the turtles came out of 41-42 degree water and were chilled too long.”

The first turtle released was a 100-pound loggerhead who had stayed at the Woods Hole Aquarium. It scooted straight to the surf. A swarm of photographers followed much to the annoyance of the crowd.

But the next 10 turtles, nine Kemp’s ridleys and one green turtle, were paraded around by volunteers and introduced by name — Vanilla, Basil, Parsley and Ginger from the aquarium, Rosemary, Jalepeno, Florence, Hibiscus and Panaphil from the Center. The green turtle is known as Salt. When all 10 were set free at once everyone got a better view.

“They get pretty far south in a day or two,” Murley noted. “Then they trickle down.”
The individually tagged turtles can be tracked through the Aquarium’s Web site or through seaturtle.org.

They were all first plucked off the shore of Cape Cod Bay during frigid spells in November and December. Jalepeno was found in Sandwich Nov. 24 chilled with flipper osteolysis and a bacterial infection. Hibiscus was from Truro with the same symptoms.

“When they wash up they are completely debilitated,” noted Sardi. “They have frostbite, infections, injuries. We warm them up five degrees a day so as not to shock their system. We give them supervised swims so they can learn to be a turtle again.”

Excess turtles are sent to other recovery units, such as the NMLC in Buzzards Bay.

“Nine came back down to us,” explained Joanne Nicholson, NMLC’s executive assistant. “We already released three in North Carolina. We’re releasing five today and one [Lavender] is staying behind for medical reasons. We were doing husbandry with them. Feeding them, cleaning the tanks, injecting them if they needed it, drawing blood.”

The green turtle went to the Riverhead Foundation on Long Island and returned to its friends Monday.

The stranding season won’t start until late October, but anyone who comes across a sea turtle, alive or dead, should call the turtle hotline at 508-349-2615, ext. 104. If it’s windy, move it up the beach and cover it with seaweed. Give good directions and stand by. Maybe you’ll get to see it swim away healthy the following summer.

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